


difficult, to be confronted with yourself

by humanveil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Romanticisation of Death, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 06:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanveil/pseuds/humanveil
Summary: There are people who think him a hero, and yet Severus thinks he'd have preferred not to survive at all.





	difficult, to be confronted with yourself

“You can go now.”

Severus doesn’t respond to Madam Pomfrey, doesn’t murmur his thanks or nod a goodbye. He simply stands, walks past the rows of beds that still hold bodies; tries to ignore the weeping relatives, the blood that stains sheets. The thick, familiar stench of death that seems to follow wherever he walks, that sweeps into skin and stirs memories of people he loves, had loved, had thought he loved.

_Suffocating._

Hogwarts is still in a state of destruction. Preparations for reparations had been put into place, but the building is still broken, still suffering from the battle that had since passed. He walks through remnants of its structure, steps over stray pieces of stone, ignores the chatter of the portraits that watch him.

He’s spent more time in the castle than away from it, and he’s never wanted out more than he does now.

Waking in the Hospital Wing had felt like a final fuck you, like a ninth push from the universe after he’d gotten up eight times. His eyes had opened to the bleak ceiling, his ears plagued by the sounds of sobs, the smell of his own blood invading his nose, and all he’d been able to think was: _how fitting, for time and circumstance to put him in a situation he’d never wanted, only to take his penance away from him._

He’d been given medication afterwards, multiple vials of foul tasting potions. Had been briefed on his injuries, on what had happened after he’d blacked out. Severus had listened, indifferent; waiting for the moment the sleeping potion would kick in and let him drift to a land of nothingness, to the sweet bliss of unconsciousness.

He hadn’t thought it could get worse, but when he’d woken from his medicated slumber, it was to Potter at his side, hundreds of questions poised on the tip of his tongue, and there’d been a moment where he’d seriously considered asking Poppy to let him down the nearest lethal sleeping potion. That if _this_ was what they’d kept him alive for, then they were going to be severely disappointed.

Still, he’d answered the questions, if only to make them leave. He’s sure the explanations had been a disappointment, but he simply didn’t care. Doesn’t care. Can’t find the energy to.

As he walks out of the castle, damaged robe wrapped around him, he supposes he ought to feel lucky. Supposes that anyone else would, that the relatives of the dead would expect it of him, would much rather he switch places with their child, parent, friend, lover. Supposes that he should be happy to be here, to have the privilege of being alive, of being able to stand where he is, the beauty of Hogwarts splayed out all around him.

Instead, he just feels tired. A bone deep brand of exhaustion, the kind that seeps into every crevice of his being, until it’s all he knows. Until it’s all he is.

He’d never planned on surviving the war, and the quiet terror of his own existence is difficult to confront, to comprehend. He has no plan on what to do, on where to go from here. There’s an empty house waiting for him, a semi-destroyed office. But he has no interest in neither. Doesn’t understand why the Earth’s forces had withered him down to skin and bone, to orders and obedience, only to throw him in the deep end of independence at the end of it. To take away the one thing he’d viewed as a saving grace.

How very cruel, he thinks.

 _What for_ , he thinks.


End file.
